Google rolled out a new format for search results, called ‘rich cards’, that is best described as an evolution of rich snippets. Rich cards can now be created a similar type of schema markup used to create rich snippets. Pages with rich card markup will be displayed in the form of a card featuring the information you marked it up with — such as prices, star rating, review count, and so on.
Rich cards are presented at the top of the search engine results pages in carousels that can be scrolled from left to right. Carousels may end up containing cards all from one site, or from multiple sites. In fact, they look a lot like the sponsored shopping cards from AdWords that you’re using to seeing when searching from products. The main difference is that rich cards can show up organically and attract just as much attention.
“For site owners, this is a new opportunity to stand out in Search results and attract more targeted users to your page. For example, if you have a recipe site, you can build a richer preview of your content with a prominent image for each dish.”
Rich cards are being shown in only two categories at the moment: recipes and movies. In addition, they’re only being shown in US English mobile search results. The company says it is experimenting with ways for more publishers to take advantage of this new search result format.
Google has updated its developer documentation and rich snippet testing tool to assist site owners with the implementation of rich card markup. Here’s a gallery of the various rich snippet and rich card formats, where you can also find the corresponding markup for each.
Eventually Google will be adding a section to Search Console called “Rich results” which will track how well your rich snippets and rich cards are doing in search; but it is currently in a closed beta. If you’re currently using schema markup for rich snippets Google says you can keep using that exact same code. For more information on implementing rich snippets, please see our detailed article on how to use schema markup.
